U.N.C.L.E.: Sam Rolfe’s Solo is ready for filming Part III

Luciana Paluzzi and Robert Vaughn in To Trap a Spy, the first U.N.C.L.E. movie.

The Solo pilot was filmed in late 1963. The only significant delay was the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. What started out as a light day (star Robert Vaughn’s 31st birthday) turned solemn and the production shut down for a few days.

Despite the conclusion of filming, writer Sam Rolfe wasn’t done. In early 1964, producer Norman Felton commissioned the scribe to write addditional scenes. Solo would be expanded into a feature film.

Initially, it would be distributed in international markets. But when The Man From U.N.C.L.E. became popular, the film version, To Trap a Spy, would get a U.S. release.

Rolfe turned it a number of pages dated Feb. 26, 1964, with some dated later.

The first scene involved U.N.C.L.E. agent Lancer. In the original pilot, U.N.C.L.E. official Allison tells Solo that Lancer had gotten a job at the company headed by Thrush official Andrew Vulcan. Lancer had tried to communicate information to Allison but was cut off.

In the new scene we’re introduced to Lancer “about forty-five years old, dressed in laborer’s clothing.” He’s driving a car that hits a post box with the address of 112 Old Post Road in Alexandria Virginia.

Lancer is wounded. “One hand is clutched against his side, blood staining through his fingers,” according to the stage directions. Another car is coming up from behind. “Lancer, frantic, scurries ahead.”

Lancer reaches a nearby house and calls out to Angela. She doesn’t answer. He reaches a fireplace where a small fire burns. He rips out the label from his jacket and puts in the fireplace. Lancer picks up a telephone.

LANCER (into phone, quickly)
Operator, get me Plaza 3-6098 in New York City.
(pause)
Yes, I’m calling from Arlington, Virginia
(pause)
Lancer here. Channel D inoperative. Direct report. When the premier of Western Natumba visits the plant, they’re going to assassinate…

He breaks off as there is a sharp silence that indicates the line has been cut. Lancer CLICKS the phone frantically.

Before Lancer can do anything else, Angela makes her appearance.

ANGELA is an attractive girl, with short, cropped hair. She is wearing a negligee and carrying a hairbrush. The feeling is that she has just come from a bath and was brushing out her hair when she encountered Lancer. Her eyes reflect surprise. As Lancer spins around she sees the blood on his shirt and she gasps.

Lancer tells Angela he didn’t want to involve her. Angela says they need to get Lancer to a doctor. However, Angela is really working for Thrush and lures Lancer to a window. “She shows no emotion as she watches Lancer,” according to the stage directions. Lancer opens the window and bright lights shine on him. That enables a gunman outside  to kill the operative.

Two men, including one identified as “the Leader” come into the room. He asks Angela if the dead agent had made contact before she could break the connection.

“Too bad,” the Leader replies. “We’ll have to make some immediate arrangements there.” This sequence now sets up the raid on U.N.C.L.E. headquarters that began the original Solo pilot.

Much later, after Solo has been assigned to investigate Andrew Vulcan, he’s driving his car when he smells perfume. “For a moment, he hesitates, ‘tasting’ the scent. He likes it, but not enough to stop being alert. His casualness is studied.”

Solo pulls the car over to the side of the road. He holds both a gun and a pack of cigarettes. Angela is in the back seat. Also, Solo is about to get his first name restored after it was stripped out of the Solo script.

SOLO
My name’s Napoleon Solo. I hope you don’t mind filters.

Angela tells Solo that Lancer is still alive but wounded. She claims that Lancer’s communicator can receive but not send.

“Her voice has been extremely sincere,” according to the state directions. “I’ll have to find out…won’t I?” Solo responds.

The couple go to Angela’s house. Solo is on guard, moving defensively.

ANGELA
You move beautifully. If this were a trap, you’d undoubtedly be able to kill me before you went down.

SOLO (smiles in return)
No question about it.

This cat and mouse game goes on for several pages. The banter includes claiming to have a nervous grandmother “back home in Topeka, Kansas. I’m afraid I inherited her genes.”

“Oh…are you from Kansas?” Angela asks.

“Of course,” Solo replies. “In’t everyone?”

This being a sequence intended for a movie, Solo and Angela make love. The banter continues afterward, but Solo hasn’t forgotten about Lancer. He finds the label to Lancer’s jacket in the fireplace. The conversation takes on a serious tone.

ANGELA (voice cooling in turn)
You weren’t rude just a short while ago. You gave much pleasure.

SOLO
And I enjoyed you in return. That makes us even. We don’t owe each other anything.

Just then, Lancer supposedly arrives outside. It’s actually his corpse popped up in position. Behind him is “SHOTGUN-MAN,” his weapon ready to fire.

Meanwhile, Solo (wisely) hesitates calling out to Lancer. The agent finally opens the window but swiftly moves to the side. The lights that helped get Lancer killed are activated. But with no one standing in front of the window, there isn’t any fire yet.

“Angela abruptly attempts to shove Solo back in front of the window…He spins away from her shove, as Angela now off-balance lands right in the line of fire…the Machine-Gun spray slams Angela’s body across the room,” according to the stage directions. ”

Solo fights his way out of the house and gets away. He chased by two thugs. But as Solo drives off, one of the thugs says he tampered with Solo’s car just in case. This sets up the scene in the Solo pilot where the agent’s car is booby trapped.

Luciana Paluzzi would be cast as Angela. To Trap a Spy would be, in effect, a dry run for her performance in 1965’s Thunderball as femme fatale Fiona Volpe.

Recasting a Major Part

There was one more writing task. Solo was picked up as a series by NBC. It would be renamed The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

David McCallum, Leo G. Carroll and Robert Vaughn in a scene written in August 1964, a little more than a month before it’d be included in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. first broadcast.

Rolfe became the day-to-day producer for the show’s first season. Between the pilot and the start of series production, the production staff opted to fire actor Will Kuluva who played U.N.C.L.E. chief Allison. In his place was veteran actor Leo G. Carroll as Alexander Waverly.

This meant refilming scenes in the pilot, scheduled for broadcast on Sept. 22, 1964.

Thus, on pages dated August 18, 1964, came Waverly’s introduction. Immediately after Solo has killed the Leader of the Thrush attack on U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, Waverly appears.

Waverly has come out of his office and is standing besides one of the posts in the room. He holds the folder with Vulcan’s picture on the cover.

WAVERLY
Quite right, Mr. Solo. Their idea was to prevent me from acting on some new information we’ve received.
(holds out folder)
Here…you may have the information, and Thrush can try to kill you for a while.

Waverly proceeds to tell both Solo and Illya about Andrew Vulcan and his place in Thrush. The name of Vulcan’s company has been changed to the United Global Chemical Corporation.

The mission is so urgent Waverly conducts the briefing in the same room with the body of the Leader of the Thrush raid on the floor. Meanwhile, the new pages don’t reference how the other members of the Thrush raiding party died after being poised by their own organization.

There is one more change. There is a brief scene where Illya gives Solo the college yearbook and says it was Waverly’s idea. Illya tells Solo about Andrew Vulcan having a girlfriend in college. That of course will be Elaine, the episode’s innocent.

It’s still a small role for Illya but he ends up taking a slightly bigger role helping Solo on the assignment. Illya would soon have a bigger presence.

U.N.C.L.E. was now on its way.

THE END

U.N.C.L.E. script: Sam Rolfe’s Solo is ready for filming Part I

Title card for the Solo series pilot

With Ian Fleming long gone, a pilot would have to be made before Solo would become a series. So, Sam Rolfe used his Solo series presentation (originally titled Ian Fleming’s Solo) as the springboard for the script.

Rolfe’s script, dated Oct. 29, 1963, begins with a sequence based on a 12-page short story in the earlier work. The Thrush attack team is smaller (four operatives now). The tailor shop is now called Del Floria’s (replacing Giovanni in the presentation). But the general situation is the same.

A person only identified as ‘FIRST MAN” enters Del Floria’s, a shop in New York City. “The only occupant occupant of the shop is an old, wizened Italian tailor, DEL FLORIA,” according to the detailed stage directions. An “ancient television” is on a counter with a hand-written note. “No Touch — Broke!”

The First Man tosses his raincoat over the TV set. The man takes off his stained jacket and shows it to Del Floria. While the tailor inspects the jacket, the other man takes out a cigarette lighter, holding it near Del Floria’s face. “He abruptly flips the ‘striker’ on the lighter,” according to the stage directions. “There is a low hiss as a jet of grey mist spurts into Del Floria’s face.” The tailor is rendered unconscious.

Now, three more intruders enter the tailor shop. A changing cubicle operates as an opening into…what?

INT. RECEPTION ROOM – RECEPTIONIST – DAY

Reception is a gleaming, metallic room without windows. The room is Spartan in its simplicity. There are no decorations. The only furniture is a steel desk and chair in the center of the room, set to face one wall (the wall in which the door to the Tailor Shop is set.) The desk top itself contains a small TV viewer and a desk sign that reads “U.N.C.L.E.”

An Asian woman is at the desk (described here as “Oriental GIRL”) but she is overcome by the invaders before she can sound an alarm.

One of the intruders has replaced Del Floria at the pressing machine. One of the team is now at the receptionist’s desk. The Leader and one other move into the bowels of the mysterious complex.

The stage directions emphasize the unusual nature of the facility.

NOTE: THERE ARE NO WINDOWS ANYWHERE IN THIS BUILDING EXCEPT FOR ALLISON’S OFFICE. ALL AREAS ARE COMPLETELY ENCLOSED BY METALLIC WALLS AND CEILINGS. ALL LIGHTING IS IS ARTIFICIALLY INDUCED BY CONCEALED FIXTURES.

Things go well for the intruders until an alarm goes off. Despite this, the leader of the invading team manages to get deeper into the complex.

Solo stands behind a bullet-resistant screen while the leader of a Thrush invasion group opens fire.

REVERSE ANGLE – REAR OF WAITING ROOM – SOLO -DAY

A figure can seen, silhouetted against the rear of the office, standing before the closed door that leads to Allison’s office. The figure (SOLO) stands poised, hands hanging loosely at its side, one holding a gun (P-38).

INTERCUT – THE FIGHT

The Leader raises his gun and starts to fire. There is the soft “snapping” noise as the bullets spew forth. A series of striations appear before the figure of Solo, as if cracks like spider webs are renting the air before him, fragmenting his figure.

WHIRL IN ON SOLO to a CLOSEUP as he stands transfixed…the spiderweb of striations refracting light…

SUPERIMPOSE MAIN TITLE “S O L O” and –

FADE OUT.

At the start of Act I, the action resumes.

FADE IN:
INT. WAITING ROOM – FULL SHOT – SOLO – DAY

The spider webbed lines still hang in space,” the stage directions say. “The Leader’s face reflects shock and fear. He fires again. Abruptly the light in the room dims out and everything is blackness except for the light streaming in from the open doorway. The Leader spins around, looking for another opponent. Sensing movement behind him, the Leader turns and fires. There is a “sewing machine like” hum as the figure of Solo appears behind him, the P-38 (a semi-automatic pistol) unleashing a flood of bullets.

As filmed by director Don Medford, this sequence would be slightly different. For one thing, Solo (Robert Vaughn) fires a Luger pistol. However, the P-38 eventually would be the basis of the U.N.C.L.E. Special, a hand gun with attachments including a larger magazine enabling automatic fire as well as a sight.

Regardless, things proceed more or less as the version eventually broadcast by NBC. Solo inspects the body of the Leader. Illya arrives. The agents discuss what has happened.

Early Solo publicity still with (left to right) Will Kuluva as Allison, David McCallum as Illya and Robert Vaughn as Solo

This script, however, still has Mr. Allison, the U.N.C.L.E. chief referenced in the original series presentation. As in that work, Allison chides Solo for not taking the man alive. He then summons Solo for a briefing.

What follows is a scene that explains the U.N.C.L.E. security system and how the invaders had a lot of information about U.N.C.L.E. headquarters but lacked key data. Namely, the reception had chemicals on her fingers to activate the security badges. Without her doing so, the alarms still went off.

In the middle of the briefing, Illya brings in the surviving prisoners. Except — they don’t survive long. All are dead within moments.

“But they are dead!” Illya says. “But how?!!!”

In the filmed version, the sequence is slightly different. The prisoners are brought before Solo is briefed by Allison. But they end up just as dead. As in the earlier Ian Fleming’s Solo presentation, the audience is eventually told they had ingested a slow-acting poison that would kill them whether they succeeded or failed.

In both this script and the filmed version, Allison gives Solo his mission. An U.N.C.L.E. operative named Lancer had communicated with Allison that a the head of a newly independent African nation has been targeted for assassination by Thrush. The communication had been cut off before it was completed.

TO BE CONTINUED

TCM schedules To Trap a Spy for June 13

Luciana Paluzzi and Robert Vaughn in To Trap a Spy

Turner Classics Movie has scheduled a prime time showing ON JUNE 13 at 10:15 p.m. New York time of To Trap a Spy, the movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s pilot episode.

The production has an unusual history.

The U.N.C.L.E. pilot was filmed in color. During production in late 1963, there was an internal debate within the production team whether U.N.C.L.E. agent Solo’s first name should be Napoleon. (Academic Cynthia W. Walker has written about this subject IN HER BOOK ABOUT THE SERIES.)

In the actual pilot, originally titled Solo, Robert Vaughn’s character is only called Solo. In the pilot, as originally filmed, the end titles said, “Starring Robert Vaughn as Solo.”

According to a timeline researched and compiled by Craig Henderson, additional footage was filmed March 31 through April 2, 1964, to turn the pilot into a feature film. The footage includes Luciana Paluzzi playing a femme fatale named Angela. Her character is very similar to the Fiona Volpe character she’d play a year later in Thunderball, the fourth James Bond film.

In that footage, Solo introduces himself to Angela as “Napoleon Solo.” Evidently, by the spring of 1964, the internal debate about the agent’s name had been settled in favor of the moniker bestowed upon him by Ian Fleming, the creator of 007.

In the end, Solo becomes a series, but under the title The Man From U.N.C.L.E. To Trap a Spy initially is shown in international markets, but with U.N.C.L.E.’s popularity, it is shown in the United States in 1966 as part of a double feature with The Spy With My Face, another movie based on an U.N.C.L.E. episode with additional footage.

U.N.C.L.E.’s executive producer, Norman Felton, was nothing if not thrifty. A tamer version of the Luciana Paluzzi footage shows up in a first-season episode that aired in the spring of 1965 called The Four-Steps Affair. It also includes some of the extra footage used in The Spy With My Face.

Another curiosity: in To Trap a Spy, the name of the villainous organization is changed from “Thrush” to “Wasp.” If you watch closely, you can see the actors saying “Thrush” with “Wasp” on the audio track. To Trap a Spy also includes the original U.N.C.L.E. boss, Will Kuluva as Mr. Allison. With the pilot, scenes were reshot with Leo G. Carroll playing Mr. Waverly, Solo’s new superior.

Regardless, To Trap a Spy is the first “official” U.N.C.L.E. movie. TCM has shown the film previously, but usually nowhere near prime-time.

Spring 1964: U.N.C.L.E. gets a new chief

Leo G. Carroll’s title card for first-season U.N.C.L.E. episodes

With less than a month before regular series production began, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. had some tweaks, both major and minor.

Superficially, star Robert Vaughn changed his hairstyle, switching his part and going for more of a “dry look” compared to the pilot that would air as the first episode.

More substantively, U.N.C.L.E. would have a new chief: Leo G. Carroll, a mainstay of several Alfred Hitchcock films, was cast as Alexander Waverly, replacing Will Kuluva’s Mr. Allison.

Carroll was three decades older than Kuluva. He had two basic on-screen personas: kind and bumbling (the 1955 comedy We’re No Angels or the Topper television series) or cold and calculating (“The Professor” in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest).

Occasionally, he got to a character where he displayed *both* personas (such as THIS EPISODE of the Boris Karloff Thriller anthology series where his character’s seeming bumbling masked his true persona).

Here’s an entry from Craig Henderson’s U.N.C.L.E. TIMELINE:

Monday, May 18, 1964

(Executive Producer Norman) Felton officially informs NBC that (Rober) Vaughn and (David) McCallum will remain to play running characters but Will Kuluva has been dropped. The new chief at U.N.C.L.E. will be played by Leo G. Carroll, and the character’s name has changed from Allison to Alexander Waverly.

Arguably, Carroll’s Waverly is an extension of his “Professor” character. Waverly is calculating and, as the series went on, showed he was more than willing to sacrifice his operatives if necessary. In one second-season episode (The Foxes and Hounds Affair), Waverly drops Solo (just returning from a vacation) into the middle of a complicated assignment where the ace agent’s life is in danger.

The official casting of the new U.N.C.L.E. chief came less than two weeks before series production began on June 1. The first draft for The Double Affair, which would be the eighth episode broadcast, still refers to Allison as the U.N.C.L.E. chief.

As the first season unfolded, the production team would seek to expand Carroll’s role. Waverly would be given a cousin who bore an uncanny resemblance (The Bow-Wow Affair) and would occasionally demonstrate he had once been a pretty mean operative himself (knocking out a lackey in The Deadly Decoy Affair).

The on-camera team was now complete. The question now was whether the show would work — or even survive.

U.N.C.L.E. movie to start filming Sept. 9, Warner Bros. says

Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer

Warner Bros. said today that a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. will begin on Monday, Sept. 9. The primary bit of news: Hugh Grant will play U.N.C.L.E. chief Alexander Waverly, the role originated by Leo G. Carroll in the 1964-68 series.

An excerpt of THE PRESS RELEASE:

BURBANK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Principal photography will begin on September 9 on Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” The film is the first to be made under filmmaker Guy Ritchie’s and producer Lionel Wigram’s new production shingle, Ritchie/Wigram Productions, which has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. Having successfully re-imagined the classic detective Sherlock Holmes in two hit films, the pair now bring their fresh take on the hugely popular 1960s television series by bringing super spies Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin to the big screen.

Henry Cavill (“Man of Steel”) stars as Napoleon Solo opposite Armie Hammer (“The Social Network”) as Illya Kuryakin, alongside stars Alicia Vikander (“Anna Karenina”), Elizabeth Debicki (“The Great Gatsby”), Jared Harris (“Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows”), and Hugh Grant (“Cloud Atlas”) as Waverly.
(snip)
Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin. Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe.

The screenplay is written by Ritchie and Wigram, who also serve as producers. John Davis (“Chronicle”) and Steve Clark-Hall (“RocknRolla,” the “Sherlock Holmes” films) are also producing. David Dobkin is executive producer.

Grant, who turns 53 on Sept. 9, is more than 20 years younger than Carroll was when the series started production. The pilot episode originally had an U.N.C.L.E. chief named Mr. Allison played by Will Kuluva. Executive producer Norman Felton opted to recast and rename the role. For the broadcast version of the pilot, Carroll re-filmed a series originally done by Kuluva. The movie version of the pilot, To Trap a Spy, uses the Kuluva footage.

Besides specifying that Grant has the Waverly role is that Jared Harris, who played Professor Moriarty in one of Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films is also in the cast.

A number of crew members were also listed, including director of photography John Mathieson and editor James Herbert. Not mentioned is who will be the movie’s composer.

Also, the press release confirms that this is will be an “origin” story. In the original series, a few hints of the background of Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Kuryakin (David McCallum) were provided but not many.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. turns 45

Forty-five years ago — Sept. 22, 1964 — a show debuted that had been pitched to NBC executives as “James Bond for television.”

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. turned out to be more than that. It ushered in an era where spies would be welcomed into U.S. living rooms and not just be seen on movie screens. The opening moments of the pilot/first episode, seen in the first couple of minutes of this video, were certainly eye-catching and enhanced by Jerry Goldsmith’s score:

The show featured a dashing wordly hero, Napoleon Solo. Ian Fleming, during a very brief period when he was involved with the project, had helped name him. Fleming quickly dropped out, at least in part because he didn’t want to anger Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producers who were turning his James Bond novels into movies. Norman Felton, the producer overseeing U.N.C.L.E., and Sam Rolfe, the writer-producer who Felton chose to write the pilot, would come up with their own take on the spy genre.

While it had some Bondian elements, U.N.C.L.E. would have significant differences:

1. It was the utopian spy show. U.N.C.L.E. was a multi-national organization, whose agents were the best that many countries had to offer. It was a post-Cold War series produced in the middle of the Cold War. The best example of that? Namely:

2. Illya Kuryakin a sympathetic Russian character. Kuryakin was seen only fleetingly in the U.N.C.L.E. pilot, The Vulcan Affair. Nevertheless, it was clear that Felton and Rolfe had bigger plans in the future. Robert Vaughn, in a short presention to advertisers and network executives said that Kuryakin (and the actor who played him, David McCallum) “is an interesting young man — you’ll see him often.” NBC wasn’t that keen on Kuryakin and wanted him out. Felton & Co. instead dumped actor Will Kuluva, who had played U.N.C.L.E. boss Mr. Allison, and had him replaced with Leo G. Carroll as Alexander Waverly. When NBC discovered what had happened, it was too late. (The Kuluva scenes were refilmed with Carroll before the episode aired.)

Bear this in mind. U.N.C.L.E. premiered 23 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. and Soviet Union nearly went to war. The show often kept Kuryakin’s “Russian-ness” under wraps, but not entirely. In one first-season episode, he’s shown in the U.S.S.R. in a military uniform. In another, he and Solo are driving up to a large mansion. “Suddenly, I feel very Russian,” Kuryakin says. Put another way: director Lewis Gilbert boasted during the making of the 007 film The Spy Who Loved Me how that film featured a sympathetic Russian character. It only took 007’s producers 13 years to catch up to U.N.C.L.E. in that regard.

3. U.N.C.L.E. spies had to be different from Bond because they mixed more with “ordinary” people.

Rolfe in his pilot script established the use of an “innocent” — a character intended as a surrogate for the audience. In Rolfe’s pilot story, it was a housewife who had a close relationship with Andrew Vulcan, a leader of the criminal organization Thrush. Solo and Kuryakin, simply by interacting with the “innocents,” had to act differently than Bond and show different emotions. In the series, the “innocents” are a mixed bunch. A goofy third-season episode, The Matternhorn Affair, has an innocent (Bill Dana) who’s supposed to be funny but instead has the audience rooting for him to get killed.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was like a nova. Its popularity shone brightly but then burned out. By January 1968, it’d be off the air.

But U.N.C.L.E. paved the way for a full fledged spy invasion of U.S. TV screens. A year after its debut, NBC brought out I Spy (a more serious, Cold War-grounded spy drama) and Get Smart, the spy parody created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry while CBS introduced The Wild, Wild West where the spy and cowboy genres mixed. In 1966, CBS went to the well again, with Mission: Impossible.

What’s more, this decade has been quite good for U.N.C.L.E. fans. The entire series is available on DVD with extensive extras. Four volumes of U.N.C.L.E. soundtrack music are available from Film Score Monthly, produced by film and TV music expert Jon Burlingame. There hasn’t been an U.N.C.L.E. movie but having seen what’s happened to Mission: Impossible (Jim Phelps turned into a villain in the 1996 film), The Wild, Wild West (turned into a very uneven 1999 film) and I Spy (turned into a goofy 2002 comedy), that may not be a bad thing.

In any event, happy anniversary, U.N.C.L.E. and Messrs Solo and Kuryakin.